Chapter Four
Four
Magical tournaments are rare spectacles. The last was held in honor of a second son born to King Richard and Queen Gertrude, though the child died within days.
—PROSPERO THE ALL-KNOWING, THE CELESTIAL BODIES
In the afternoon, Roland lounged at the head of the banquet table, tossing his head back as cupbearers placed fruit on his tongue. He tuned his lute until the rest of the food arrived: garnet wine glistening, meats still steaming, everything staining Roland’s lips and tongue red.
A Sunborn magician, Ambrose, was seated to my left.
His eyes were golden orbs, so brilliant and flashing it was difficult to look at him directly without pain.
Beside him was Oliver, the Mercury who had shared my cart to the palace.
Across from us were two Jupiters—Fulke Roet’s magician, Jasper, a monstrous man with gold stacks in his ears, bulging arms and a roguish grin, eyes the deep stain of twilight.
Then Jasper’s young apprentice Cosmo, a boy who laughed nervously and watched Roland with something close to worship, his eyes and hair both robin’s-egg blue.
Jasper was raising the level of wine in the poor boy’s goblet every time he looked away.
I had never seen so many magicians gathered together at once. My mind brushed across theirs, a light, hesitant touch. They were all on edge, too—little Cosmo especially.
“Bianca,” Roland called. His pearl earring flashed in the beam cast by Ambrose’s stare. “Will you pass the pheasant?”
I set my cup down. “You can reach from there, can’t you, Roland?”
“Your Grace,” he corrected. “And no, my limbs are entirely worn out this morning, I fear. I can scarcely move. What were you doing last night?”
His goading had the intended effect. I leaned across Tom Guildford’s plate so Roland could hear me better.
My voice didn’t carry very far. “Have you ever had a nightmare, and even after you wake, you can’t distinguish what was real or not?
The terror still lingers? Well, I dreamt you had killed me, Your Grace. ”
It was a half-lie. I had only slept for an hour this morning, curled up as a cat in a patch of fresh sunlight, but the ring-laden hand clasped over my mouth had woken me with a start.
Roland’s brow lifted. “You dreamt of me?”
I scoffed. Courtiers sipped their drinks, trembling with laughter. All the magicians but the Sunborn Ambrose joined in.
“And how did His Grace kill you?” Tom Guildford asked.
Court required plucking the strings of conversation like an instrument.
Roland was particularly good at it. Moments like these, when all the courtiers turned in one direction, determined who was a wit or a bore in their collective eye.
I thought about my answer. Settled on “He was slow and gentle, I assure you.”
Tom chuckled politely, turning back to his meal.
“Prospero would sit you down and discuss dreams for hours,” Roland said.
There was a sharp intake of breath. Glances cast about.
Only Roland would dare. I shifted food around my plate and seethed.
“One time,” Roland continued, waving his cup around, “I had a dream that I was giving birth to a litter of puppies. Prospero said it meant I was going to win a great fortune, and the next day, I beat Wyatt at cards. How much did I get off you, Wyatt?”
“A year’s income,” Wyatt grumbled.
“A year’s income? Truly?” Roland smiled at him. “I could always count on Prospero.”
Unlike Oliver and Jasper, who were both swept up in conversation with Roland and his friends, the Sunborn Ambrose was quiet. Watchful. He finally introduced himself to me as the first course was served, bowing his golden head.
“No need,” he said when I opened my mouth to do the same.
“I know who you are, Bianca Mortlake. Born under the crab, on the eleventh of July.” He inclined his chin toward Roland, who was still loudly reminiscing about his legendary game of cards.
“You dislike the lord chancellor.” A small smile crept onto his full lips. “You may be the only one.”
I stole a glance at Roland. “I’ve made it too plain.”
“He is favored for both the magicians’ tourney and for the jousting.
It is a shame no one can compete with him.
” Ambrose laughed again, then leaned close to my ear.
“I was half-expecting the Saturn Balthasar to show, though I suppose he’s—” He chased a berry on his plate, finally catching it. “—far too comfortable in Bastian.”
Saturn—the farthest planet known to us, the great mystery. Saturns were the most secretive of all magicians, cold as shadows over stone. I had only ever heard Balthasar’s name whispered or spat as a curse.
Ambrose leaned even closer. “It is all true, you know. What they say about him. They wait in long lines so he will reunite them with the dead. But it only lasts for a little while, and the experience is like wine. You’ll lunge for another sip right away.
The entire Bastian court is lost in grief.
The courtiers don’t dance merrily or laugh.
They sit in silence, their food rots. Even the emperor spends his days shut away with the ghost of his dead wife.
So, you see, a court is shaped by its ruling magician’s talents.
” He nodded to Roland to prove his point.
“Did you apprentice in Bastian?” I asked.
“Oh, no. I spent my youth in Estellan.” A coastal kingdom across the channel.
“The Sunborn there is the only other of my kind in the entire world, and as soon as he got word of me, he brought me to his palace. I was eight years old. Had I been less powerful, I suppose I could have remained in his vast library with my books and been very happy. But alas, he tried to kill me.”
“Alas.” My finger traced the rim of my goblet. I hesitated to ask whether loneliness had festered in him, too. We had only just met.
“And you, trained by the great—” He lowered his voice. “—Prospero himself.” His eyes cast light when they traveled to Roland. “Both of you, together?”
I nodded.
“It’s unusual. Most would wait until one apprentice had finished their training to take on the next.
And Prospero was not of either of your planets.
Better that way, I think. He would not see you as a threat, someone who would one day overtake him.
” The beams of light swept to Jasper and Cosmo, as the boy magician licked his wine-tainted lips and looked to his master for approval. “How did Prospero manage to teach you?”
“He relied on old legends. Whatever he could find.”
Ambrose rubbed his bare chin. “I’ve heard a few. You can mine the feelings of men for pretty gems, can’t you?”
I shifted in my seat and felt a flash of interest from Roland’s mind. “Well, I suppose. For instance, if I looked inside you now, I could sense the general atmosphere, the texture of your mood.”
“Hmm. And what is it?”
“You’re curious. Intrigued by our conversation. Grateful, perhaps, that we’re seated together? I have to infer so much, you see.”
He smiled. Though he was reserved, I could also tell he liked to be the one quietly shining. “There’s more to Moonborn than that, though. Isn’t there?” He tapped his chin again. “Do you glow in the dark?”
I laughed beneath my hand. “Regrettably, no. Though I’ve been asked in some circumstances.”
“What are those?”
My answer died in my throat. A heavy gaze had landed on us, but when I peered over at Roland, he was laughing with Queen Cecily, his ear tilted toward her mouth. Yet it seemed as if his eyes had only recently jumped from our side of the table.
“Court is a web,” Ambrose whispered softly. He had seen where my attention traveled to. “Spiders who weave and flies who are caught. Which are you?”
For a moment, I hesitated. But there was no need to lie. The Sun shone into the soul of a person and revealed their true nature.
I was anything I wanted to be. I was born to change faces.
“Both,” I admitted. “Though at this very moment, I feel like a fly.”
Suddenly, Roland leapt to his feet and raised his cup. “Drink your wine, every last drop. We’re off to hunt for tonight’s banquet.”
Cecily clapped her hands. Wyatt Francis and Tom Guildford exchanged grins. The hounds beneath the table began to howl.
The forest was lush and green, the air promising rain.
Roland rode proudly on a chestnut stallion at the head of the hunting party, wearing a tight leather jerkin over a white doublet, a pearl necklace resting against his collarbone.
I considered spooking his horse several times, then thought better of it.
When I kicked my heels against my mare’s side, she tugged me off the path to snack on clovers. Tom and Wyatt passed by, sneering about how I should be taught to handle a woman, and they both laughed before trotting away.
Ambrose, my new friend, fell back to my side. “All right, Mistress Bianca?”
“Fine,” I said, digging my heels in, urging her on.
One half of the party wanted to cross a stream, and the other insisted on the promise of torn shrubbery deeper in the wood.
Ambrose and Oliver both followed Jasper and Cosmo, the two blue-haired Jupiters, into the crooked forest. Jupiters were notoriously lucky—whatever path they chose at random was usually the right one.
I decided to stay with Roland and his friends. I had my own path to follow: a lingering trail of fear. A frantic heartbeat, leaping across the stream. I knew it belonged to the stag.
But Roland’s group quickly lost interest in the hunt. Tom composed sonnets on the riverbank as the others waded into the stream, boots cast off and hose rolled above their knees. Bare ankles flashed between shining rocks. They bent to cup water in their palms to drink.
“Tom, who are you writing about now?” Roland asked over his shoulder.
“You,” Tom said sweetly.
Roland kissed his cheek with wet, shining lips. “What do you write about me?” He snatched the paper from Tom’s hands, spilling the ink pot into the water. It ran black. “Are my eyes really the color of a blazing dawn?”
Yes, I thought.